200 Years Together - Bible Believers

1 1 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 200 Years Together Russo-Jewish History 2 Volume 1 - The Jews before the Revolution: Ch. 1 Before the 19th century (translated by R. Butler and J. Harris) 3 Ch. 2 During the reign of Alexander I Ch. 3 During the reign of Nicholas I Ch. 4 During the period of reforms 34 Ch. 5 After the murder of Alexander II 75 Ch. 6 In the Russian revolutionary movement Ch. 7 The birth of Zionism Ch. 8 At the turn of the 20th century Ch. 9 During the Revolution of 1905 Ch. 10 During the period of Duma Ch. 11 The Jewish and Russian national consciousness prior to World War I Ch. 12 During World War I Volume 2 - The Jews in the Soviet Union: Ch. 13 The February Revolution 98 Ch. 14 During 1917 111 Ch. 15 Among Bolsheviks Ch. 16 During the Civil War 136 Ch.

2 17 Emigration between the two World Wars 165 Ch. 18 In the 1920s 193 Ch. 19 In the 1930s 251 Ch. 20 In the camps of GULag 293 Ch. 21 During the Soviet-German War 302 Ch. 22 From the end of the war to Stalin's death 336 Ch. 23 Before the Six-Day War 351 Ch. 24 Breaking away from Bolshevism 369 Ch. 25 Accusing Russia 382 Ch. 26 The beginning of Exodus 399 Ch. 27 About the assimilation. Author s afterword 417 3 Chapter 1: Before the 19th century From the Beginnings in Khazaria [G13] In this book the presence of the Jews in Russia prior to 1772 will not be discussed in detail. However, for a few pages we want to remember the older epochs. One could begin, that the paths of Russians and Jews first crossed in the wars between the Kiev Rus and the Khazars but that isn t completely right, since only the upper class of the Khazars were of Hebraic descent, the tribe itself being a branch of the Turks that had accepted the Jewish faith.

3 If one follows the presentation of J. D. Bruzkus, respected Jewish author of the mid 20th century, a certain part of the Jews from Persia moved across the Derbent Pass to the lower Volga where Atil [west coast of Caspian on Volga delta], the capital city of the Khazarian Khanate rose up starting 724 AD. The tribal princes of the Turkish Khazars, at the time still idol-worshippers, did not want to accept either the Muslim faith lest they should be subordinated to the caliph of Baghdad nor to Christianity lest they come under vassalage to the Byzantine emperor; and so the clan went over to the Jewish faith in 732. But there was also a Jewish colony in the Bosporan Kingdom [on the Taman Peninsula at east end of the Crimea, separating the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov] to which Hadrian had Jewish captives brought in 137, after the victory over Bar-Kokhba.

4 Later a Jewish settlement sustained itself without break under the Goths and Huns in the Crimea; especially Kaffa (Feodosia) remained Jewish. In 933 Prince Igor [912-945, Grand Prince of Kiev, successor of Oleg, regent after death of Riurik founder of the Kiev Kingdom in 862] temporarily possessed Kerch, and his son Sviatoslav [Grand Prince 960-972] [G14] wrested the Don region from the Khazars. The Kiev Rus already ruled the entire Volga region including Atil in 909, and Russian ships appeared at Samander [south of Atil on the west coast of the Caspian]. Descendents of the Khazars were the Kumyks in the Caucasus. In the Crimea, on the other hand, they combined with the Polovtsy [nomadic Turkish branch from central Asia, in the northern Black Sea area and the Caucasus since the 10th century; called Cuman by western historians; see second map, below] to form the Crimean Tatars.

5 (But the Karaim [a jewish sect that does not follow the Talmud] and Jewish residents of the Crimean did not go over to the Muslim Faith.) The 4 Khazars were finally conquered [much later] by Tamerlane [or Timur, the 14th century conqueror]. A few researchers however hypothesize (exact proof is absent) that the Hebrews had wandered to some extent through the south Russian region in west and northwest direction. Thus the Orientalist and Semitist Abraham Harkavy for example writes that the Jewish congregation in the future Russia emerged from Jews that came from the Black Sea coast and from the Caucasus, where their ancestors had lived since the Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. J. D. Bruzkus also leans to this perspective. (Another opinion suggests it is the remnant of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.)

6 This migration presumably ended after the conquest of Tmutarakans [eastern shore of the Kerch straits, overlooking the eastern end of the Crimean Peninsula; the eastern flank of the old Bosporan Kingdom] (1097) by the Polovtsy. According to Harkavy s opinion the vernacular of these Jews at least since the ninth century was Slavic, and only in the 17th century, when the Ukrainian Jews fled from the pogroms of Chmelnitzki [Bogdan Chmelnitzki, Ukrainian Cossack, 1593-1657, led the successful Cossack rebellion against Poland with help from the Crimean Tatars], did Yiddish become the language of Jews in Poland. [G15] In various manners the Jews also came to Kiev and settled there. Already under Igor, the lower part of the city was called Kosary ; in 933 Igor brought Jews that had been taken captive in Kerch.

7 Then in 965 Jews taken captive in the Crimea were brought there; in 969 Kosaren from Atil and Samander, in 989 from Cherson and in 1017 from Tmutarakan. In Kiev western Jews also emerged.: in connection with the caravan traffic from west to east, and starting at the end of the eleventh century, maybe on account of the persecution in Europe during the first Crusade. Later researchers confirm likewise that in the 11th century, the Jewish element in Kiev is to be derived from the Khazars. Still earlier, at the turn of the 10th century the presence of a khazar force and a khazar garrison, was chronicled in Kiev. And already in the first half of the 11th century the jewish-khazar element in Kiev played a significant roll. In the 9th and 10th century, Kiev was multinational and tolerant.

8 At the end of the 10th century, in the time when Prince Vladimir [Vladimir I. Svyatoslavich 980-1015, the Saint, Grand Prince of Kiev] was choosing a new faith for the Russians, there were not a few Jews in Kiev, and among them were found educated men that suggested taking on the Jewish faith. The choice fell out otherwise than it had 250 hears earlier in the Khazar Kingdom. Karamsin [1766-1826, Russian historian+ relates it like this: After he (Vladimir) had listened to the Jews, he asked where their homeland was. In Jerusalem, answered the delegates, but God has chased us in his anger and sent us into a foreign land. And you, whom God has punished, dare to teach others? said Vladimir. We do not want to lose our fatherland like you have. After the Christianization of the Rus, according to Bruzkus, a portion of the Khazar Jews in Kiev also went over to Christianity and afterwards in Novgorod perhaps one of them Luka Zhidyata was even one of the first bishops and spiritual writers.]

9 Christianity and Judaism being side-by-side in Kiev inevitably led to the learned zealously contrasting them. From that emerged the work significant to Russian literature, Sermon on Law and Grace (*by Hilarion, first Russian Metropolitan] middle 11th century), which 5 contributed to the settling of a Christian consciousness for the Russians that lasted for centuries. *G16+ The polemic here is as fresh and lively as in the letters of the apostles. In any case, it was the first century of Christianity in Russia. For the Russian neophytes of that time, the Jews were interesting, especially in connection to their religious presentation, and even in Kiev there were opportunities for contact with them. The interest was greater than later in the 18th century, when they again were physically close.

10 Then, for more than a century, the Jews took part in the expanded commerce of Kiev. In the new city wall (completed in 1037) there was the Jews Gate, which closed in the Jewish quarter. The Kiev Jews were not subjected to any limitations, and the princes did not handle themselves hostilely, but rather indeed vouchsafed to them protection, especially Sviatopolk Iziaslavich [Prince of Novgorod 1078-1087, Grand Prince of Kiev 1093-1113], since the trade and enterprising spirit of the Jews brought the princes financial advantage. In 1113, Vladimir (later called Monomakh ), out of qualms of conscience, even after the death of Sviatopolk, hesitated to ascend the Kiev Throne prior to one of the Svyatoslavich s, and exploiting the anarchy, rioters plundered the house of the regimental commander Putiata and all Jews that had stood under the special protection of the greedy Sviatopolk in the capital city.